In the eight years of existence, the Youth Violence Prevention Programme at the CSVR has worked with the aim of helping young people from various communities to deal with the negative aspects affecting their lives.

For many years schools in certain communities had been affected by violent crime and often became the battlegrounds for gang wars. Learners at these schools also became the targets of rape, sexual abuse and bullying.

When Professor Kader Asmal became the national minister of education in 1999, he also identified violent crime, vandalism, drug dealing and sexual abuse in schools as impediments to the proper functioning of the education and training system. Through numerous social responsibility initiatives in communities, the Youth Violence Prevention Programme set out to turn the tide against these problems and their consequences.

Thus the Youth Violence Prevention Programme's initiatives in schools, such as the Safe Schools programme, enhanced the government's plans to deal with factors that created insecurity and fear among learners and teachers. The intervention model developed by the Programme with the various stakeholders at school level, together with our manuals "Peer Counseling", "Trauma Management" and "Building Safety Now" proved to be useful for the Safe Schools approach. The models and the materials are currently the basis for the Gauteng Department of Education's exciting rollout programme to all the schools in the province. Hence the theme of the Youth Violence Prevention Programme's work over the past eight years has been to keep the South African Youth safe - those in school and those out of school.

Target Audience

The programme seeks to take its message across to a broad range of stakeholders, locally and internationally. The primary consumers of the programme's services include schools, youth clubs, community-based organisations, academics, government departments and non-governmental organisations dealing with issues involving young people.

Values and Objectives

The main focus of the programme is on young people as they are agents for change in communities. The programme's activities are strongly focused on building resilience among young people by exposing them to alternatives to violence and other negative behaviour. The Youth Violence Prevention Programme engages in various activities aimed at giving voice to the youth. Through sustainable social responsibility initiatives, the programme seeks to inculcate a culture of human rights among young people and also to empower them. Work in this regard is also done in co-operation with other units within the CSVR.

Team Members Include:

• This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - Programme Manager
• This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it - Community Facilitator